Manufacturing Process Selection and Costing

Abstract

The design of a component, its material and method of manufacture determine its quality and cost. In this paper a technique is introduced that can be used in the early stages of the design process for the purposes of manufacturing process selection and costing. The work has been applied in industry and its performance, in terms of its ability to predict costs, is described; its implementation as a knowledge-based system integrated with the automated draughting process is also discussed.